Fragile
by TartanLioness
Summary: Life goes on. There is still work to do, cases to solve. There are still families with questions that need answering. But Peter Boyd doesn’t care. Angst. Boyd/Grace
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Fragile

**Author:** TartanLioness

**Summary:** Life goes on. There is still work to do, cases to solve. There are still families with questions that need answering. But Peter Boyd doesn't care. Angst.

**AN: **This is quite angsty, I think, so tissue warning!

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Life goes on. There is still work to do, cases to solve. There are still families with questions that need answering. And now, Peter Boyd can do one of two things. He can completely ignore the cases, the work, the families and all the questions and allow himself to grieve. He can almost hear Grace's voice as he sits in his darkened office; _don't push it away, Boyd. You need to deal with your grief. You need to let it out._

But that is not what Peter Boyd does. Peter Boyd does the other thing: he always has. He buries himself in work. But work no longer gives him any comfort; it only serves to remind him of her. When reading a file, he'll tell himself to remember to mention something to Grace… only to realise the next moment that he won't be able to. When he fetches coffee, he thinks about bringing her some, until he realises with a start that her office is dark and empty and acknowledges that she isn't there to drink coffee with him and the fault is his.

Not finding any comfort in his job anymore and not wanting to go home and face the pain, Boyd feels at a loss. He feels restless and uneasy. He doesn't know where to turn anymore. He sighs and hides his face in his hands.

_A shot rings out, shattering the eerie silence in the fog and Boyd ducks instinctively before looking around. Eyeing the shooter, he sets off after him, trusting Grace to stay where she is and not unnecessarily endanger herself. It doesn't take long for him to realise, however, that age is catching up with him. He isn't as fast anymore as he has been and his stamina isn't as great. Disappointed and angry, he has to see the shooter disappear out of his sight. Boyd rests his hands on his thighs, bending over slightly trying to catch his breath._

"_Damnit," he swears as he slowly walks back to the spot he's left Grace. He is still berating himself, as well as planning the next step in the investigation when he notices that Grace has, indeed, moved. His eyes widen. How can he not have noticed that? How can he have gone off without checking? _

_Grace is lying on the wet grass, her head facing away from him and her hair is mattered with dew. Boyd runs to her, his worst fears surfacing as he gently turns Grace over to look at him. Her eyes are closed and his hand comes back wet, with her blood all over it. _

"_Oh, god," he whispers. Then urgently, "Grace!" His fingers slip to her neck and he locates a pulse, although faint. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he slaps her face gently, hoping to wake her. Her eyes flutter open. Boyd tries to smile reassuringly at her as he pulls out his mobile and urgently phones for an ambulance, quickly explaining the seriousness of the situation._

_With the knowledge that an ambulance is on the way, Boyd presses his hand against the bullet wound in Grace's chest, smiling apologetically at the wince of pain on her face, and trying desperately to hide the panic he felt. There is just too much blood. Clearly the bullet has missed her heart or she wouldn't be alive now, but this is serious. Very serious. Boyd curses his police training for making him run after the shooter like that, forgetting that he isn't with a highly trained officer but indeed with a civilian under his protection. _

_Boyd frowns with concentration and frustration. He tries his best to stop the blood, but it just keeps seeping through his fingers. Grace has gone completely pale and her breathing has turned shallow with the exertion of staying conscious. At least her eyes are still open, Boyd tries to console himself. She is looking at him intently, seeming to focus on him and only him. It is a survival technique, he knows. Focus on one thing and keep your focus there, away from the pain. _

"_Boyd," Grace whispers hoarsely. Boyd tries to shush her, tries to tell her to save her strength but she continues, undeterred, "Please tell my children what happened. Tell them everything; you can't hide things from them. And tell them I'm proud of them, yeah?" _

"_No, Grace," Boyd insists, sweat breaking out on his forehead with the exertion of stemming the blood. "You need to tell them that yourself. You're going to be okay."_

"_Boyd, promise me!" Grace is adamant. Boyd nods briefly. _

"_I promise, Grace. But you're going to be okay, do you hear me?"_

_Grace smiles weakly at him, knowing that that isn't true. She isn't going to be okay. For a moment, the urge to tell him everything is overwhelming and she has even opened her mouth to say it – to tell him that she loves him – before she thinks better of it. There is no point, is there? She isn't going to be okay. She is going to die. Telling Boyd that she loves him and would have liked to spend the rest of her life with him is perhaps tempting but it won't do any good to either of them. It will only make her death all the worse for him. _

_Boyd bites down tears. He isn't going to let Grace see him cry; he wants to be strong for her now, wants to be her tower of strength to lean on more than anything else. Wants her to live. The policeman in him tells him she isn't going to. There is too much blood. But he pushes that notion to the back of his head, unable or unwilling to consider it now. Another thought pops up in his head then, one he has had buried in the back of his head for far too long and which is now resurfacing. He loves Grace. He has known this for a long time, really. He wants to tell her. He has to tell her. _

"_Grace," he starts. Then he thinks better of it. Telling her he loves her, while very true, would be the same as admitting that she is probably not going to make it. He doesn't want to scare her. He doesn't want to admit to _himself _that she might die. Telling her is out of the question. _

_The tears spill over despite his efforts to keep them in. Even Peter Boyd – Mister Super Policeman – is human after all. A part of him worries that this will be the last time he will see her, but a larger part of his mind pushes the thought away, unable to deal with the terror of it. _

_Grace feels exhausted. The pain in her body is immense and she just wants it to end – but the pain in Boyd's eyes seems even worse than the physical pain. He knows she is dying, and he is trying so hard not to let her see it, but he knows and it terrifies him. _

_But even with all the pain, Grace is starting to feel a blissful darkness creep up on her. She isn't scared anymore. There is nothing to be afraid of, really. Boyd is there with her, right by her side and if she is going to die now, that is the way she wants it. It is selfish, of course: Boyd shouldn't have to face her death this way; seeing Mel die has been bad enough for him – but Grace needs his strong, reassuring hands and his I-won't-let-you-go attitude. _

_The darkness creeps closer and lures her with its calmness; she is tired now and the dark seems quiet and restful. She wants the dark. _

_Again the urge to tell Boyd about her feelings overwhelms her with a last effort, but she pushes it back and just says, "Take care, Peter," before succumbing to the dark, tranquil, sweet perfection permeating her mind._

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

Boyd had felt her slip away as if he had literally held her life in his hand and had let go

Boyd had felt her slip away as if he had literally held her life in his hand and had let go. Her eyes had closed – something he was grateful for; he couldn't bear to see the life leave her eyes and have to shut her eyelids – and she had gone lax. For a long moment, he hadn't understood it. His mind had completely shut down and he had stared at her lifeless face for the longest time. Finally he had pulled his hands from her body, uncovering the bullet wound slowly, almost reverently.

_Boyd looks at his hands uncomprehendingly. Tears fall unbounded as he sits down next to his best friend and buries his face in his hands, not caring about the blood on them. _

That was how the paramedics had found him some time later; crumbled up next to the dead woman, hiding his bloodied face from the world. It had taken a lot of coaxing to get him to move and when he finally had, it had been with an expressionless face and eyes that were full of deep sorrow.

Boyd lifts his face from his hands, withdrawing reluctantly from the calm, quiet darkness. He should have been able to protect her. He should have stayed with her. He should have taken better care of her.

He should have taken better care of her in more ways than one, he realises. He can still hear her words in his mind. _That's how you make people feel. You are repressed, depressed and in denial, everyone who comes in contact with you has to deal with that!_ No one has ever dealt with it quite as remarkably well as Grace had. She had always been there and always refused to back down, it seemed. She stood her ground even when he yelled at her. She wasn't sassy or rebellious as Mel had been – Mel, another member of his team he had let down. He hides his face in his hands again, wanting to cry – but she had always been there to keep him on the straight and narrow… or at least to try.

_You treat everyone's opinions as if they don't matter, as if the people around you don't matter!_

It was only that time she had ever really yelled at him, ever really gone off her head and just screamed at him. And he had deserved it – of course he had. The things he had told her were awful and untrue… and he had never apologised for them. He never sat her down after she came back and apologised. Or even just explained, set things right with her. She'd just returned and that was that. She had returned because she knew he needed her. Because she knew he was going crazy without her there with him. And yet, she had never seemed to expect an explanation. The smile she had sent him through the glass had given him hope that everything would be okay, but the fact was that he never did anything to deserve her return. He had thought about it. He had called her several times at home, but he had always hung up. He had thought about going over to her place and talk to her, but he never did. And she returned anyway and everything seemed to have gone back to normal.

He should have apologised. He should have talked to her. He should have been a better person and told her everything. He should have saved her from that bullet. She shouldn't have had to die. Why did she have to die? Hadn't she done everything for him? Hadn't she always been there? Why couldn't the bullet have hit him instead?

Grace had so much more to live for than he did._ You're isolated and unloved!_

But that is just the point, isn't it? That he wasn't entirely isolated and unloved. She was his friend. She loved him. He just never appreciated it.

Boyd looks up and into Grace's dark office. There's something cold about it, now that he knows she'll never be in there again. For a moment, he thinks he can see her sitting there, bent over a file on her desk, reading, and then suddenly looking up to meet his eyes. She smiles at him. He blinks and she's gone. Of course she's gone, she was never there, he berates himself. She is gone. She is gone and he hates himself for letting her go; for not protecting her. She was his best friend and the only person who knew him completely and didn't run a mile because of it. She has always been there, even when he disappointed her, even when he yelled and even when he cried. She even came back after he drove her away. She came back because she cared about him. He should have protected her better. He should have taken that bullet for her, and he would have. He knows that without a doubt. If he had had the chance, he would have taken that bullet without hesitation. That would only have been fair. Grace should not have been the one to die. Grace had a family and peers who respected her. Grace had everything Boyd doesn't and she deserved to live and enjoy those things.

And now that she is dead, Boyd can't help but curse the skies that seem much too clear, much too bright. For Grace Foley, the skies should cry, should pour out tears for her and never stop. For Grace Foley, the whole city of London should pause and mourn. Instead, the sky is clear and the sun and the moon have shone their blissful light on the ever-bustling city in a bitter betrayal. He wishes that it would rain. Rain would suit his mood and leave him feeling a little less alone in his grief.

Grace was the first person to bring some light into his existence after his son disappeared and his marriage ended. She saw through his tough-policeman-act and noticed the man underneath and although it had often annoyed him and even more frequently terrified him to no end that she could see right trough him, he had needed her in his life more than he had been willing to admit to. She had cared enough to want to keep him on the straight and narrow, not for the force's sake, not for his career's sake, not for the suspects' sakes, but for _his_ sake, because she cared about _him_. And above all else, she had believed that he was worth saving.

Boyd feels tears stinging his eyes and he wipes them away with an angry gesture, despising himself for crying. But the tears he wipes away are replaced by others and soon, he is sobbing hollowly into the quiet of the cold case headquarters.

Life goes on. There is still work to do, cases to solve. There are still families with questions that need answering. But Peter Boyd doesn't care. The one constant, reliable aspect of his life has been taken away from him and now he is in a place of unceasing conflict, never knowing where to turn. And his thoughts are faded by his tears, faded like his memories of her soon will be. He closes his eyes and sees her compassionate, beautiful face and her mild, blue eyes and his heart beats a little easier with the knowledge that he hasn't forgotten her.

THE END

AN: Sorry everyone. I know you didn't want Grace to die. Neither did I, actually. But she did :( Hope you enjoyed it anyway.


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